Jewish Survivor Georgine Hyde Testimony on Youtube

Georgine Hyde, former East Ramapo trustee and Holocaust survivor, dies. Memorial service open to the public set for 11:30 a.m., Wednesday at Wanamaker & Carlough Funeral Home, 177 Route 59, Suffern.

Georgine Hyde East Ramapo school board presidentBuy Photo (Photo: The Journal News, file)

POMONA - Georgine Hyde, an Auschwitz concentration camp survivor who became an educator on the Holocaust, advocate for children and 36-year member of the East Ramapo Board of Education, has died. She was 90.

Hyde was suffering from Alzheimer's disease when she died Friday at her home in Pomona.

Educating children and adults became Hyde's passion after she survived the Holocaust and the Auschwitz death camp during World War II and came to the United States in 1952, settling in Pomona in 1957. She also served as president of the New York State School Boards Association and Rockland Board of Cooperative Services.

In a 2005 interview with The Journal News after she lost her school board seat, Hyde reflected that surviving the death camps was a gift and inspired her to make the world a better place one child at a time.

"It means you can help, that you can develop a future for children," Hyde said. "You can build history through schools. The influence of public education can be enormous. I think I wanted to participate in the future."

Elected to the school board in 1969, Hyde lost her seat in 2005 when the district's ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish community made its first move to take over the board.

She had been targeted for defeat and garnered the fewest votes along with then-six-year Trustee Danielle Bright, as David Resnick and Steven Rosenstock won seats. Resnick and Rosenstock were endorsed by the Southeast Ramapo Taxpayers Association, a group that supports candidates who have ties to private schools. The organization has since been a moving force to elect residents with children in private schools and defeat proposed budgets.

The obituary notice written by her family for lohud.com said: "She won 12 consecutive elections and served 36 years on the East Ramapo School Board during the district's halcyon days when parents, teachers, administrators, and community leaders admired East Ramapo for educational excellence and integrity."

Her son, John Hyde, 54, of Pomona, said his mother continued to follow goings-on in the district - even as Alzheimer's took her memory.

"She would have been devastated," he said.

The district has come under strong criticism for laying off hundreds of teachers and other employees, cutting programs and its spending habits, while enhancing transportation and special education placements for the private school community. The state Department of Education has appointed a monitor without veto power to watch the board, whose members have been targeted weekly this summer by demonstrations.

"When Georgine Hyde lost the election we not only lost a wonderful person but E. Ramapo also," Joan Murad, a former East Ramapo resident, said in an emailed comment. "May she rest in peace."

People commenting on Facebook about Hyde praised her for her dedication to the school community and her devotion to human rights. Several called her a legend and a wonderful leader.

Arthur Gunther, the former editorial page editor for The Journal News, worked years with Hyde, who wrote letters to editor.

"Georgine Hyde turned from her inhumane suffering in the Holocaust to the fertile field that is the young," Gunther said. "Every day of her life, she advocated for children, knowing that in giving them attention and education, she was guarding against another inferno."

Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, she was a newlywed teenager when she survived several months in Auschwitz in 1944 after coming from Theresienstadt labor camp. Her parents and a sister were killed by the Nazis in Auschwitz-Birkenau, which murdered millions during its 29 months of operation.

After the war, she went back to Prague and later lived in Australia and England before immigrating to the United States.

Hyde turned her Holocaust experience into a venue to promote education. She spoke to children and adults across the region about her life, the Holocaust, and other mass murders across the world.

She was one of the founders of the Rockland Center for Holocaust Studies.

"To me, Auschwitz is forever the world's largest cemetery, Hyde said in 1995. "There has never been anything like Auschwitz before and hopefully never again."

Hyde received an Honorary Doctor of Humanities from Dominican College in Blauvelt, an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, and the New York State School Board Association's Everett R. Dyer Award for Distinguished Service.

A memorial service open to the public will be held 11:30 a.m., Wednesday at Wanamaker & Carlough Funeral Home, 177 Route 59, Suffern.

She is survived by her husband of 74 years, Frank Hyde; her son, John Hyde; and a granddaughter, Natalie Hyde.

Twitter: @lohudlegal

She won 12 consecutive elections and served 36 years on the East Ramapo School Board during the district's halcyon days when parents, teachers, administrators, and community leaders admired East Ramapo for educational excellence and integrity. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/lohud/obituary.aspx?n=georgine-hyd...

Holocaust survivor:

http://pamatnik-terezin.cz/vyhledavani/Aghetto/detail.php?table=ghe...

Transported to Ghetto Terezin, Auschwitz anfd Gross rosen. Liberated from Gross rosen.